Hello, everyone! Mr.Bojingles here. It’s been quite some time since I wrote an article! However, after I came across these suckers, I just had to. . .
A friend’s school was giving away tickets to 포캣몬타운 (Pokémon Town), and he happened to get his hands on some for us and a friend to go! I tried to do some research beforehand on the event, but I couldn’t find much other than a web image of the VIP pass event. Other than where and when it was taking place, I knew nothing about it.
The event was held at the “AT Tower”, which is basically just a huge convention center. There’s a pic of the entrance to the event hall to the right:
It was much bigger than I expected! It took up a huge room and it was packed full of people and events. It seemed like the sole purpose of “Pokémon Town” was to promote the new Genesect movie, which was advertised just about everywhere.
Not only was there movie viewing and trailer events, but there were also wireless distributing events, so people with their DS’s and Pokémon games can obtain an Eeveelution and/or a Deoxys. For some ridiculous reason, it didn’t strike me to bring my DS, so I was out of luck receiving any special promotional Pokémon. However, there were plenty of other events going around! They included a Lego Pokémon building set demonstration, a Pikachu cookie making station, card tournaments and DS link battles.
Upon entrance to Pokémon Town, we were given a small booklet with a flap in the front that seemed to be used for a photo, and inside was a map/sticker chart with silhouettes of Eeveelutions. We were to go through event hall and complete certain activities for Eeveelution stickers that filled up our chart. When we obtained each Eeveelution, we can obtain a giant Eevee Pokémon card. While this was intriguing, the activities were all geared towards small children, so having three full grown adults complete them was a bit unnerving. Also, the lines for some of the more interesting ones (a surfing Jolteon event. . .what?!) were horrendous.
Another interesting event was 포캣몬한자 (Pokémon Hanja) where the kids had to identify the Pokemon’s hanja name, or their name in Chinese characters. After they identified all of the Pokémon, actors dressed as Team Plasma characters appeared to fill in more items in their sticker chart.
The best thing about Pokémon Town was the photo ops and, of course, Pokémon loot! They had tons of inflatable Pokémon characters (no people in suits, unfortunately) and a small gift shop full of goodies. I wasn’t particularly enthralled by their selection of Pokémon paraphernalia, but I made do with some adorable Pikachu stickers and stationary items (Brittney the beta was not included in said Pokémon loot :p )
Overall, my friends and I had a good time spending a few hours milling around the place. Not only were we the only foreigners there, but minus the old man battling some teenager in Pokémon cards, we were the oldest people actually attending the event. Needless to say we stuck out like a sore thumb. Overall it was a great, albeit random way to spend our Saturday afternoon!